Silver Glass
by Celeste Aislin
Summary: Driven by unknown forces, one gloomy day 12 year old Usagi Tsukino hid from life in the backroom of a drugstore. The two men she met there would forever change her life, dragging her with them into a war waged by Sailors and Gods, of which she was neither
1. Solitude is to be Feared

Hello all! This is, honestly, just a test run of this particular story. I've been playing with it for a while, but I'm at least ready to put these first very few pages up. Although, there may be changes as the story goes along (just as there always are) so I make no promises that everything will remain exactly the same...

Disclaimer: Quite honestly, I don't think I have ever read a story of Sailor Moon that echoed any of what I plan to write (and I have read a LOT of fanfic in my time). Though I obviously can't claim to be completely omniscient or to be completely original with so many fans out there and writing, I really would like it said here that this particular spin on the Sailor Moon universe is mine. While the characters are not, the characterization is. I know I sound like an overprotective mother and I hope I don't offend anyone, but these characters are kind of like my babies, even if the original concept of Sailor Moon isn't mine...oh how I wish. So. Just so that's out there! And now without further ado!

. . . S I L V E R G L A S S . . .

. Prologue . "More than darkness, solitude is to be feared."

. . .

Mamoru Chiba groaned inwardly as he backed through swinging doors, awkwardly lugging three crates and hoping his poor grip would not lose him any of them. He hoped equally as much that none of Seiya's crates were in his way. His friend had the nasty habit of dropping the inventory boxes just through the doors, the perfect setting for Mamoru to trip backwards with his own load. And considering the haze he felt in, if anything lay in his way he'd surely fall over it. Even things 5 feet away probably stood a chance of jumping in his way.

He needed to stop dwelling on her. He felt foolish and pathetically desperate every time she came to his mind. The others seemed to have forgotten her, or at least she did not seem to haunt their every thought and action…it would make no sense if she _did _haunt them. Darkly he made an effort to push the figure lingering just beyond his sight away. _That's enough for today,_ he ordered his thoughts, knowing full well she would grace them with her silhouetted mysticism before long. It was an agonizing cycle of self-destruction, he knew. How to stop it, that was the solution which escaped him. He attempted once again to not think of her, and instead focused his attentions on the noises of the outside world, rather than the inane chatter of his inner one.

Mamoru could hear Seiya conversing with one of the customers at the counter, and rolled his eyes at the flattery that man put into his words. Honestly, the woman had come in to buy Tylenol. Seiya needed to coax her into other purchases because...? Or perhaps she just struck Seiya's fancy in another way. But then, sometimes all it took was a heaving breast to interest Seiya.

"Idiot..." he murmured under his breath, though his slight grin betrayed his true opinion of his roommate. As he bent to set the crates down, however, his expression quickly changed as a light wind blew his dark hair directly into his deep blue eyes. Brushing the locks away, puzzled at the source of the breeze, Mamoru made a cursory glance over the drug store's back room. Only as he noticed the alleyway door ajar did he recognize the sound of hard rain beating down, echoing off the cement floors and plain walls.

The angry bark he felt almost directed towards his fellow store clerk, likely the guilty source of the gaping door, died in his throat as his eyes found a shivering mass of cloth and marble white skin. Mamoru's eyes traced over the slight girl huddled in a ball against the white-washed walls which she managed to look pale next to. She was soaking, dripping water into pools all around her. He should have been angry, or at least slightly perturbed by her presence. After all, she was both trespassing and making a mess Mamoru knew Seiya would shrug onto his shoulders; he _should_ be angry with this girl, but something choked it back. The only feeling Mamoru could muster was a strong sense of déjà vou, and a heart sickness that caught between his stomach and lungs.

He forced himself to refocus on the situation as he drew his breath back. The girl sat with statue-like rigidity, almost painful from the look of it, but her stillness quaked with a disturbingly-intense shivering. For a second time he squelched the memories this girl tried, unintended and unbeknownst to her, to evoke. He looked down at her bruised, porcelain face and dull, disoriented, and frightened eyes, and one memory was replaced with another as he saw unmistakably a mirror image of something he was equally uninterested in facing.

Mamoru was surprised to find that, as if the rest were not enough, there was something else about her as well. A something he could not quite pinpoint, and questioned whether he should want to either.

. . .

Seiya hurried into the back room immediately after finishing up with the customer he had. The distraught look Mamoru gave him as he left the back room caught Seiya's attention, enough so that when Mamoru beckoned him over Seiya did not think twice about leaving the customer mid-purchase. What Seiya heard had him sprinting towards the back after hap hazardously shoving the customer's purchases in a sack much too large. Mamoru did not seem to share Seiya's enthusiastic worry, nor did he run alongside Seiya to where the girl sat, but Seiya had expected neither. Seiya assumed Mamoru felt his job over, the mission and therefore associated feelings successfully handed over, like some impersonal bank transaction. Though the fact that Mamoru was actually _letting_ Seiya "deal with her" said something about the shape this girl was in.

With Mamoru's oddly cold streak, recently the most dominant portion of his personality (though his natural disposition could never really be described as "cheery"), Seiya would have guessed his friend's reaction to be a curt remark meant to send a trespasser scrambling. He hoped Mamoru's more favorable course of action was a sign of better things to come, but somehow Seiya felt this to be stretching both their luck. He was more likely to find the girl he was rushing towards in absolutely wretched condition by anyone's standards than for Mamoru to spontaneously have shaken out of his seemingly never-ending rut.

And for the life of him, Seiya could figure no potentially helpful mode of action towards lifting Mamoru out of the hole he continuously dug for himself. Seiya could barely fathom the rhyme and reason for such a steep decline in his best friend's mood. He could guess, sure, hypothesize, yes, but all his conjectures seemed in some way faulted, which only led to conversation (or shouting matches) all with dead ends and a further moody Mamoru for Seiya to walk on eggshells about. And being around Mamoru had always been more like dancing across cracking glass already.

In the few years Seiya and Mamoru had known one another, it had taken half the time for Mamoru to open a small crack of himself to the man he said was his best friend, and this was after a bitter streak as mortal enemies, and only a result of forced coexistence and similar situations. Seiya knew only bits and pieces of Mamoru's past, and had to guess mostly in order to piece together a halfway-decent picture of the young man's constant inner turmoil which Seiya knew existed. Conversely, Mamoru seemed to have always been quite familiar with everything Seiya had going on, but maybe part of that could be accredited to just how damn good Mamoru tended to be at reading people. Seiya had yet to meet another mortal who held a secret from Mamoru's staring gaze.

Mamoru and he shared polar opposite personalities and though processes, yet at times, although a conceded few and far between, something of the mask Mamoru wore by day and night fell away. At those moments, Seiya truly knew himself to be among Mamoru's closest friends, if only because he was completely certain he was one of very few to witness Mamoru without the emotional wall…or to be even more accurate, emotional labyrinth. Mamoru's look of desperation as he's reentered the store front had not been one of those rare slippages of his carefully sculpted face; such a reaction would have sent Seiya into a panic. But it had been enough emotion to betray the surface, a slight window at the worry he had truly felt.

Watching Mamoru for reactions and emotions was like watching the waters of a deep lake, the sort so deep it darkened just past the surface, and while there could be an explosion of life and movement, all that appeared on the surface was the gentlest of ripples here and there. Tiny movements for monumental events. Its stillness and darkness belied the true depth, and came to resemble more of a void than anything similar to life. The depth of emotion Mamoru could possess was, for the time being, measured singularly by the emotional void he'd masked himself as. Seiya had to admit that he had neither the depth nor the void of emotion Mamoru kept safely hidden away. Only these subtleties gave hint to Mamoru's thoughts these days.

By contrast, Seiya happened to be the compassionate sort to find that spark in every being, unlike Mamoru who seemed to find fault with every being, swallowing what Seiya knew to be his true reactions down into that black lake. No man as compassionate, gentle, and truly kind as Mamoru was (and had proven to be on several occasions) could possibly react with such blatant apathy to the world around him, not unless the apathy was part of that protective maze. But as he approached her, somehow Seiya wished for that ability to swallow the deeper reactions with something more trivial as a cover, as Mamoru could do. Because even Seiya wasn't sure he could find anything resembling a spark of life in the shaking child before him.

"Mamoru, get a couple towels and a warm blanket," he said calmly, kneeling in front of the girl, reeling inside both at his own ability to feign confident composure, as well as at the girl herself. She was too like Mamoru, too like that void. She practically _was _a void, and he hadn't even spoken to her, hadn't heard the dull voice he could recognize anywhere after having heard Mamoru use it on occasion, always when the world around had become what Seiya could only guess measured as a fracturing point for that labyrinth and lake. Seiya's eyes traced over the blonde, barely more than a child, who practically pooled before him. He wished he could better annunciate the invisible, sucking force that seemed to drag every bit of composure from him. He realized he ached for this girl-child, knowing nothing but that she sat before him. It seemed an inhuman ache, and he was hit with the knowledge that the pain he felt was but an echo emanating from her. Had Mamoru noticed this…?

Seiya forced his thoughts to the external, fearing he did not have the willpower to do such. He searched her body for physical, and only physical, anomalies. The smudged dirt and mud running down the front of her calves, mingled somewhat with blood, directed his eyes to the scrapes at her knees, and her hands as well. She had fallen, most likely after running from an unknown tormenter, enough of one to drive her into this unfamiliar territory. He continued to scan over her, noting the rips and small tears along her once-white uniform, now dirt stained and likely beyond repair. The red ribbon of her sailor school top was unknotted and uneven. His eyes traveled up to her face, which he finally took in.

He was somewhat surprised that, beneath the worry and ever-increasing ache, he felt the stirring of something else, something pleasant he could not quite place. He noticed a bruise forming under the girl's right eye, and wondered for what could only be the thousandth time in seconds the ordeal she could possibly have just been through. He tried to stare into her dark, stormridden eyes but found his own gaze repelled by something within her. She did not seem to even notice him there, just went on shaking, whether from cold or fright or both Seiya could not be sure.

He looked long and hard at the girl before him, wracking his brain for the speck of recognition she sparked in him that wasn't the resemblance of his imaginings of a 6 year old orphan boy grown into the desperately unhappy young man returning with the items Seiya had asked him to find.

Mamoru handed him the towels and thick blanket, and Seiya was too distracted to ask where he'd found them...or how much money was coming out of their paycheck for them. "Should we call the manager?" he voiced the question that finally made itself known above the other buzzes in his head. Seiya waited a moment for an answer, then turned around to look at Mamoru. The other just shook his head minimally.

Satisfied that Mamoru agreed with him on that count, Seiya turned his attention back to the girl. She now stared blankly down at the cold cement floor she sat upon, as if it were the only thing that existed. For a moment, as he watched the water run down her face in rivers only to gently drip from the tips of her slight nose, delicate chin, and the ends of her tarnished gold bangs, Seiya finally found a name for the feeling he'd been struck with by no other before. It could only be attraction. It didn't hit him like a brick wall, but like a phantom, whispered in his ear, and breathed against his skin. He knew his eyes had widened in surprise, and was glad Mamoru stood as far behind him as the man could physically get away with while still being a part of the effort. Mamoru must have sensed that same strange, haunted pull.

Quickly, Seiya shook everything out of his head as he held out one of the towels for the girl. He didn't know any other way to get her attention and still avoid physically touching her. But when her arms made no move to receive the peace offering, Seiya decided to take it upon himself to snap the girl from her own clutches. The weight upon himself had only been getting harder to struggle against. He guessed the girl needed outside help from the strange void she centered so she too could escape it.

Slowly, gently, Seiya began to mop up the water streaming off of her. He started with her face of alabaster, careful to pat as softly as possible the already darkening bruise defining itself against her cheek bone. He noted that it was a few moments before her eyes finally moved to look up at him. Seiya found himself lost in deep lapis blue eyes, dark stones staring out of the white marble face. He continued his drying effort, and felt Mamoru's eyes boring into his back and the girl's face. Mamoru was reading her, as he did with everyone. Yet Seiya wondered if he may finally have met his match in this tragically sad girl.

. . .

Mamoru watched that strangely familiar girl's head finally come up, and recognized the blue eyes staring back at him. Then, as suddenly as recognition came to him, it vanished as though swallowed by some greater, and even less tangible, being. All that remained was that throb, edging closer to him and threatening to double him over with pain. For every stab her presence released, another of greater force made itself known from within himself. Attacked from both fronts, Mamoru could barely stand her presence. Yet neither could he force himself to leave her here, her magnetism was so strong. Staring at her haunted eyes as she raised her gaze to Seiya's, he was at once repulsed and enthralled, feeling the depth of her own sorrow reverberating with his. He knew he could never find it in himself to outright lie and pass the look of her eyes off as normal. He'd seen it too often in his own reflection. _Could_ he willing to ignore her eyes though?

Focused on Seiya, the weight of her gaze was less so, but that mattered very little. He had the barriers to save others from his own ghosts, but the naked and entrenched hurt was displayed for all to see even if her focus was on the floor, a speck of dust, another person. Mamoru, with too much difficulty, tore his eyes from those wells of pain to watch Seiya both attempting and failing to dry the girl off properly. Seiya seemed to be giving off odd vibes as well, though nothing that even began to compare with the other person in the room.

Mamoru chose to focus on the lesser of two evils; the rhythmic pulse lessened with his attention elsewhere. Rarely could he follow Seiya's train of thought, but Mamoru pushed all his effort into knowing what his friend was thinking, if only to save himself. Yet the idea of invading Seiya's privacy left a sour taste in his mouth, if possible less appealing than the inner pain he experienced at the hands of some perfect stranger who by the minute frustrated him further. His temper, so close to the surface these days as it was, began to rise to the challenge. He bit it back, trying to think of an outlet for all these infuriating strings of emotion clinging to a chance situation. But if in some way he helped this strange girl with eyes spelling loneliness by not losing his temper, he felt compelled to choke back the temper he usually didn't bother controlling at all. He worried that, just as her emotions (or emotion as the case seemed to be) made themselves known to him, his somehow might reciprocate and worm their way into her own mind. The thought made him pitiably docile as the next stab struck him hard enough that he sucked in breath, wincing.

_Distractiondisctractiondisctraction…_ He followed Seiya's movements, watching him attempt to coax words out of the girl. Mamoru found himself longing to hear the ring of the store bell outside, which would not alarm him to a customer but a means of escaping this. He couldn't bear to look at this girl much longer.

"So..." Seiya was saying as he began to dry the top of the girl's head (perfectly pointless, as the rest of her hair was soaked...now that he looked, she had extensively long hair). "I don't believe I've ever seen you here before. What was your name again?"

How could he expect her to tell him outright what her name was? And of course he'd never seen her here before! She was in the back room of a drugstore! What were the chances of a casual run-in there? Mamoru sighed, about to voice something similar though perhaps less exasperated, when the girl took him by surprise.

"U-usagi..." the girl stammered out. Rabbit...although the picture should have fit with the girl shaking from fear and cold, something didn't quite right to Mamoru. He wondered if Seiya-

"Usagi, hm? That's a cute name," Seiya seemed too relieved to have gotten a word out of the girl…Usagi… to notice what her name meant. At least that was Mamoru's opinion of the situation. He was also sorely tempted to roll his eyes at the flattery.

"Th-thank y-you." That she was polite should not have surprised him, honestly. What in the world had he expected her to otherwise be? Perhaps it was not the actual words that surprised him, but the voice with which she said them. She was beyond cold, her bluing lips could attest to that if the shudder in her voice did not, but beyond that, her voice held something unexpected. Mamoru realized his expectation had been to hear a dull, dead voice to match the incomparable, haunted eyes. Instead, Usagi had a surprisingly lyrical voice–young, light, and wholly alive. Mamoru found himself reminded of golden sunrays, albeit winter rays –softened, muted. The two images still clashed. To speak kindly, she looked like death. But she _sounded_ like the most beautiful living creature imaginable.

The feeling of being unconsciously drawn to her by something invisible became harder, though nothing had really changed. She still pulsed of an ultimate sadness and horror, a pulsing that still each time resounded within him as well. He could not possibly stay in her presence much longer and survive the encounter, he told himself. At the same time, an idea made itself known to him. Mamoru became aware of a plausible source for the girl's look of death.

"Youma…" he murmured under his breath. Usagi had not heard him, but Seiya turned his head ever so slightly, obviously aware of what Mamoru had uttered. Mamoru looked to Seiya, meeting the other's gaze for the first time in what seemed like hours but Mamoru realized could only have been seconds, perhaps minutes. He saw his expression reflected in Seiya's eyes. The exhaustion had crept up on Mamoru like an assassin in the night, until somehow he found himself on the precipice of collapse. He _had_ to get out of there. Luckily, he had a way to kill two birds with one stone… or perhaps, kill a youma. He nodded to Seiya before walking as fast as he physically could out the still swinging backroom door, out into the still-pounding rain and salvation.

. . .

New story! Huzzah! Because the summary doesn't really allow a lot of introduction, the idea behind this story was a question which turned into a series of questions: what would happen if the events of Sailor Moon happened backwards? What if Galaxia had been the first threat, what if Usagi's true identity remained unknown until the end? What if Seiya had gotten his wish, and met Usagi before Mamoru? Would things have still turned out the same...? Heehee, I suppose you'll have to read to find out! It's slow going -Silver Glass is by far my favorite fic so far, so I'm being a bit of a perfectionist with it, as well overprotective (once again, I hope the disclaimer didn't offend anyone!) ; I have the majority of the plot mapped out, as well as a prequel in the works, so now I just need the skill to get it all written to my satisfaction! This I can promise: Silver Glass WILL be a finished story. It's not going anywhere, it keeps me up at night too much!

A further aside, the quote waaaaay up there at the beginning (and the chapter title) is a line from Kinjirareta Asobi (The Forbidden Game) which happens to be the opening theme for Rozen Maiden (an anime I recommend -I enjoyed it anyway).

Finally, thank you for reading!


	2. The Light that You Shine

Heeeeeello! And welcome to a new chapter - Usual disclaimer applies, obviously. Enjoy please!

. . .

"Youma…" Mamoru murmured under his breath. Seiya turned his head ever so slightly, obviously aware of what Mamoru had uttered. Mamoru looked to Seiya, meeting the other's gaze for the first time in what seemed like hours but Mamoru realized could only have been seconds, perhaps minutes. He nodded to Seiya before walking as fast as he physically could out the still swinging backroom door, out into the still-pounding rain and salvation...

. . . S I L V E R G L A S S . . .

. . Chapter One . . "The Light that you Shine can't be Seen"

. . .

Seiya watched out of the corner of his eye as Mamoru practically sprinted into the alleyway, not surprised by the action. From the distance Mamoru had placed between himself and Usagi, Seiya guessed her proximity caused him discomfort. Seiya was just glad Mamoru had figured out some way to at least be semi-productive, although he truly doubted that what ailed Usagi had anything to do with strange monsters running amok.

However, Seiya kept tightlipped of his own theories, and could not discredit Mamoru's automatic assumption that a youma was causing her distress. After all, it was not something they could discuss with Usagi sitting between them. Mamoru had clearly needed a reason to escape the enclosed space. Seiya could not be sure, but he assumed that all those emotions he felt caught inside himself, spurred on by Usagi, were all the more potent to Mamoru. And if he knew anything about his best friend, Seiya knew Mamoru avoided those feelings like the plague. A plague forever at his heels…

Seiya shook his head, sighing at the unending cycle he watched Mamoru figuratively circle. He turned his attention back to the physical problem at hand. Seiya continued to towel Usagi off, watching as she began to resuscitate before his eyes. Some sort of amazing transformation had begun when he had simply asked for her name, like recognition had stirred with her own spoken answer so now she could begin to grapple at the edges of her own reality. The ache her presence had brought began to quiet some, retreating back (he assumed) into her small figure, and causing him pause. He had to almost remind himself of its former palpability. The idea came to him that, had he been introduced to Usagi in a normal fashion, that ache would never have made itself known.

He watched the blatant struggle in Usagi's expressive eyes as she groped to tuck away the hurt she had been expressing in such a tangent yet silent way. Seiya expected that she was, at least to some extent, aware her feelings had leaked, though whether she knew to what degree it had been physically tangible he could not say. Seiya had to wonder. Her emotions made him, an outsider, ache; he could only imagine the magnitude and depth of those emotions within their owner. Did those feelings weigh on her as a constant companion? Surely just one event could not be the source.

So no… it was most surely not a youma, of that Seiya could be completely sure. From the moment he had noticed her torn and dirtied uniform, other…darker ideas had begun fluttering about his conscious thought. His first assumption, rape, had been somewhat refuted when Usagi allowed his touch, even through a towel. Seiya was no expert, but he at least believed that, if such an ordeal had occurred, she would definitely have shrunk away from the attentions of not only himself but also a second man, Mamoru. He felt a small amount of relief that she had not been at all bothered by his actions, but he also felt compelled to confirm no true harm had been done, a sharp bite of fury ready to leap into action at the chance of such. He did not particularly _want_ to think about what actions he might be propelled into should Usagi substantiate that particular gnawing suspicion.

His other, somewhat less threatening but still equally infuriating, theory revolved around others her own age. The sort who found such an obviously different and special girl a threat. Because Seiya knew within a shadow of a doubt that Usagi by no means fell into the category of "average". To be sure, she probably did average things, lived a normal life: had parents, grandparents, perhaps siblings, maybe frequented the arcade or mall. She had likes, she had dislikes. She woke up every morning and went to bed every night, and soundly slept through the disturbances of the city of Tokyo.

No, her uniqueness had nothing to do with her activities and everything to do simply with who she was, a small legacy she had been born to. Seiya felt it clearly now, and had throughout this brief encounter. She glowed. She emanated not only her emotions, but her spirit, her soul, her complete and utter goodness. She was one of _those_ people. Even with her personality a complete mystery, it made no difference; some part of this girl caught attention, requested thought, and required action. She was a wonder just by existing, just by crying or smiling. Seiya knew this, as surely as he knew the sky was blue and the grass was green. He had experienced it before and was familiar, oh so familiar, with the sheer inner beauty a person like this Usagi possessed.

Just so, he was also all too familiar with the deepest and darkest places of people, the places that struck a dissonance with someone like Usagi. To an extent, those people could feel it too, to them a strange and almost eerily serene nature, and their response was completely fear based. _She_, they thought, _is not like us_. And so they hunted, and they hurt, driving nails of self-doubt and rejection into the perfectly harmless, loving, caring hearts of humanity. As Seiya believed they had done to Usagi, more so now that he had contemplated the true possibility.

Seiya watched her draw in a small breath as she closed her eyes to the world, noted the subtle squaring of her shoulders as she pushed the last of the negativity deep into herself. He felt he already knew what had happened to her without having to ask. Equally, he knew that the hurt that had been pouring out from her in streams and rivers had taken only a few mere moments to be inflicted and would require years to heal. The idea sickened him.

Reaching his free hand out, Seiya grasped one of Usagi's own balled fists, felt the icy fingers slowly uncoil and soften under his touch. "I'm Seiya." He tried to convey to her all his understanding and his vow through the connection of his palm and fingertips: he would never harm her as those meaningless, pitiful humans had. He would help her overcome the subsequent wounds so she might see herself as clearly as he did now. He wondered if her breath would be taken away as his was.

Usagi's blue eyes opened, clearly somewhat with surprise at his frank touch. Her eyes remained so subtly sad as she traced over his hand momentarily, then his facial features, studying him. She seemed to search for something, and assessed as she looked. Then the corners of her small, heart-shaped mouth turned minimally upwards. "It's nice to meet you," she replied, her voice no longer distant, though still suppressing the shivers of physical cold.

The smile that found its way into her eyes sent his heart beating slightly faster.

. . .

Mamoru turned the corner of the alleyway and jogged out into the deserted street, already regretting his hasty retreat. The rain, hindered by the two buildings squeezing together to create the alley, suddenly came down onto him with intense ferocity. He honestly might have sold his soul for an umbrella…well, it would not have done him any good at that point anyway. He felt his eyebrow twitch in annoyance.

Mamoru was not angry, per say, with the small dripping ball of a human girl that had almost forcefully pushed him from the room. He had been irked by the entire situation, his inability to protect against her onslaught of emotion mostly. After all, he had years of extensive experience in suppression, his proficiency was unparalleled. Yet not only had he felt, hell, practically tasted, the emotions rolling off Usagi, creeping through his barriers like a soft, permeating mist, he had also felt a part of himself react to those emotions. It was the part that, above all else, he tried to keep under lock and key. And merely her presence had stirred it. Mamoru was not self destructive enough to ignore the fact that this scared him. And the fact that he could not pin any sort of frustration or even surface anger onto Usagi scared him even more.

Normally he would say his current situation, i.e. being out in the pouring rain rather than face standing in that room with her, at least allowed for some blame on Usagi. After all, if he managed to maintain a practically emotionless existence, one would think she could at least attempt emotional stability. He knew his expectations were solely based on standards he found to be important –most people did not seem quite as inclined to shut out the world of feelings as he was- but surely the line needed to be drawn somewhere. And assuming she was of a sound, semi-intelligent mind with the basic social instincts, Usagi had to be familiar with this. He was entitled to be a bit frustrated with her lack of control, wasn't he…?

He could not do it though; there was anger, certainly, but he could not direct a bit of it towards that fragile creature he had watched crumbling before him. Sympathy, he felt. Empathy, he recognized, creeping in under that same wall the mist of her sadness had managed to penetrate. It signaled a loss of control. And without control, the control that held those barriers in constant, firm place, he did not know where he might end up.

He acknowledged the subsequent fear _that _notion brought, but he could not face it. Not yet, not now. He could not muster the complete self composure to manage such a task to his unemotional satisfaction. Every thought seemed to chip away another piece of his reserve rather than rebuild it. He had almost reached the point where he wondered why he held to that wall like such a lifeline. It was definitely time to completely change the direction of his thoughts.

Mamoru forced himself to focus on his task, and think as little as possible about that too warm room at the back of the store and its inhabitants. He was hunting…he scoffed a little at the image that brought to mind. Usagi had not had significant surface wounds, simply a couple scrapes and bruises, and Mamoru truly did doubt that the source of her…discomfort…was due to a youma, but he felt the obligation to check.

For two beats, he contemplated calling Yaten or Taiki, then dismissed the idea. On the off chance that there was a youma, he felt confident enough that he could take it down. After all, this hypothetical phage had let Usagi escape, and the scrapes on her hands and knees led him to believe she had fallen at least once while running. With such deserted streets, it was not as though a youma would have a plethora of victims to torment. Although he supposed that the reason for such abandoned streets could be the phage and not the rain…but no, there were people across the way walking, umbrellas in hand -not many but enough to suggest nothing of malice existed, only uncomfortably wet rain.

Mamoru had a choice. Either he could continue sloshing through the rain, thoroughly enjoying himself in a most sarcastic way, while he searched for a likely non-existent phage, or he could return to work, grab one of the towels he had handed to Seiya and man the counter. Somehow the coarseness of such an action rubbed him wrong, as though he might offend and hurt not Seiya (he could care less about Seiya's sensitivities) but Usagi by stealing an item meant for her. What an irrational feeling…

So he would go to the front and dock another towel from his pay… But somehow, that option grated against him just as much as the first. After all, why _should_ he have to walk on egg shells around a complete stranger who he had never seen before and certainly never would see again? What did he care about _her_ sensitivities either?

Which brought him back to thinking much too much about the strange reactions he had in response to Usagi.

All right. Maybe the girl had left already. Then again, there was always the chance that she had not. He had not been outside more than five minutes either. His internal grumblings had become far more pronounced in that relatively short period of time.

Fine. He just would not return to work. Except Seiya expected him… well, he had a phone didn't he?

The image of himself as a surly teenager began to take form in his mind's eye. He made a face of disgust. Mamoru was not one to make up excuses or to avoid a problem. Usagi was the problem. He refused to yield.

Decided despite himself, he went to turn on his heel and stalk back towards the store when something stopped him. He stiffened, at first unconsciously, then he realized what his subconscious had recognized first. The faintest hint of a familiar scent, a sort of floral fragrance, reached him. Eyes widening in a true moment of panic, Mamoru tried to follow the source before the rain completely drowned it out. He did not need to search long.

He squinted through the heavy rain, turning his head in every direction and cursing the steady stream of water. He caught her silhouette strolling barely a block ahead of him, umbrella raised over her like a beacon, summoning him towards a holy object. She carried _his_ umbrella.

A force like a serious blow to the gut stole his attempted, ragged breath from him. For a moment, he thought his heart had stopped at the sight. He gasped for the breath that had left him, struggling to cry out, speak, whimper, anything. He faintly comprehended the water raining down onto him and streaming into his eyes that stared unblinkingly into the back of her, and he heard the soft and distant clicking of her heels against the wet pavement, yet he found it was all so far away. He felt like Usagi had looked, as though the world around him did not exist, save for that one retreating figure which sucked all life from him.

Finally he managed a breath, after what seemed like hours, even days. He wasted no time on a soft whisper of wonder. With every second she walked further away…just as she had done before. That thought sent enough of himself to the surface to give him the strength behind his voice.

"Setsuna!"

. . .

Seiya made absolutely no movement as Usagi gently lifted the towel from his hand and begin patting dry her own extensively long, burnished gold locks. Her blue eyes left him to watch her own deft movements, and he felt the absence of her attentive gaze. For a moment, he watched her fingers work through the tangled strands. Then he realized how close he leant in, just as the store-front bell jingled.

He turned to attempt a look into the front room, but his angle didn't allow any sort of real perspective. Sighing, he looked back to Usagi to find her eyes on him again, though her fingers still moved through her hair with the same gentle force as she worked them through tangles. Her expression had become slightly wary, as though she finally had begun to wonder at his motives.

Seiya heard the customer moving about the front. He smiled what he hoped was encouragingly at Usagi. "I'll be right back," he spoke, and realized with some wonderment as he stood and left for the front room that he had spoken less than five sentences to her and yet he already felt something he chose to call attachment, knowing full well that that was a gross understatement. He wanted to…simply sit beside her, continue to bask in her presence. Even more than that, he wanted to know her, to converse with her. _Did_ she have siblings? What _were_ her likes and dislikes? But there would be time for that later. He lightly chastised himself. Why was he in such a rush? There was always time.

All the same, he hurried the customer as much as was politely possible, knowing the man probably wondered at Seiya's obvious apprehension and glances towards the back every few moments. Seiya did not let it worry him; the customer, like most people, would come up with his own, albeit likely incorrect, assumption as to Seiya's agitation. Seiya often wondered himself at that assumptive trait in humans; why not simply ask? Mamoru told him often that he was too blunt; if only he knew how much Seiya held back out of respect for the humanness of Mamoru and his respective planetary inhabitants…

_Speaking of_, Seiya began to think, bagging the customer's purchase with suddenly slowed movements as he thought, _where __**is**__ Mamoru?_ Having thought that that the youma theory was a far-cry from apparent reality, Seiya had shrugged it off to mostly Mamoru's own discomfort at the nearness of Usagi and her intimately tangible emotions. After all, if Seiya had managed to observe it, he really had no doubts Mamoru could also perceive Usagi and probably make at the very least similar if not better jumps towards the cause. Nothing ever really seemed to escape Mamoru, save perhaps his own motivation. Now though, Seiya paused. Perhaps there had been a youma, though in all likelihood it was unrelated to Usagi.

Still pondering the issue, he returned to the backroom after thanking the customer and safely seeing him out the door. He made a cursory glance around for Mamoru, and upon not finding him returned his gaze to the now standing Usagi.

She was much smaller than he had anticipated (her legs had seemed quite long folded to her chest, though now Seiya realized that this was because they _were_ long but in no way proportionate to her torso). Usagi only reached his shoulder height at the most –and Seiya considered himself far from a tall man. She was lanky, and quite thin, especially for someone he imagined was still growing. While normally the pleated skirt and loose-fitting top of her junior high uniform would drape her body less suggestively, the wet uniform now enhanced Usagi's clear shapeliness. Despite her assumed age, she had well-developed curves, and Seiya had to quickly avert his gaze away from her chest, which while not quite as proportionally developed as her hips certainly still had the rounded quality of breasts. He thought he had estimated her age correctly at twelve or thirteen, in spite of her more adult feminine features, especially when he considered her face.

Usagi would probably not be everyone's definition of straightforward beauty. But Seiya doubted anyone could look at her and not at least see her as attractive, if not astoundingly pretty as a jumping-off point. He did note that she had what might be considered as some youthfully awkward features –her eyes appeared quite large by comparison to her smaller nose and mouth, for example. And he imagined her wonderfully leggy appearance often came across more as gawky. Yet she had many universally attractive qualities that offset these others, such as her extremely long and very rare golden hair. Seiya could only imagine the woman she would become, when she fully grew into her face, and when the features currently considered faults to her appearance would become breathtaking additions.

"Heartbreaker" did not begin to describe it. Hand in hand with her naturally appealing nature, she would be a beautiful, unstoppable force of nature.

Seiya watched her twist one long, streaming lock of hair into a small bun atop her head, allowing the rest to free flow, matching an identical pattern on the opposite side. What an unusual style… it fit her incredibly well. He wondered how she ever could have been inspired to try it, how she had come across it in the first place. Or had she imagined it up herself? Another mystery.

Usagi caught his gaze, and he felt a slight blush stain his cheeks. When was the last time he had blushed at someone? Rather than being embarrassed, he felt a rush of appreciation towards his emblazoned emotion. It had been much too long.

Usagi's skepticism drained away as she clearly noticed his blush. Color flooded her own cheeks in answer, and she quickly diverted her look to the floor. "I-I'm sorry," she began with a stammered apology, her face staining further as she made a final twist of her hair then dropped her hands in front of her. "I can't even begin to apologize for all the trouble I've caused you and the…" Usagi paused, clearly unsure of how to continue, and Seiya realized also doubtful of how she should address the absent Mamoru. He watched her struggle, too unabashedly amused with watching her discomfiture to immediately rush to correct or help her. She was absolutely adorable, twisting the fabric of her navy skirt only to belatedly realize that wrung it out... "I don't know what came over me, I was running and trying to…" she bit her lip at the direction of her hurried statement, clearly choosing to skip over too much detail rather than flood Seiya with it. "I was running. And I saw the door open, and I just…" she bowed her head low, squeezing her eyes shut against what she clearly thought was an oncoming rebuke.

Seiya thought a moment about how he should react. Clearly, laughing at her humility would only insult her; he simply found her rushing explanation charming. After she had waited for his response only to be met with silence, Usagi began to raise her gaze with the curiosity of a child. Seiya had to quickly hide his smile behind what he assumed she thought would be a more fitting expression.

He shrugged with what he hoped came off as nonchalance, instead of boredom, and responded with yet another encouraging smile –not too wide, but soft and inviting. "I left the door open with just such a purpose," he attempted at a small joke.

Her wide eyed expression made him falter. She could not honestly believe him…could she? She _did_ have that innocent naïveté about her, perhaps she was one of those "gullible is written on the ceiling" followers.

Just as he was about to reassure her it had just been his own forgetfulness, he watched the actuality of the situation dawn on her, and she smiled. It could not possibly be considered one of her best smiles, it was slight with just a hint of amusement, he guessed more for her own slower reaction than his actual, lame attempt at light humor. But even so, her small smile managed to lighten the dark room they stood in, rain pouring just beyond the doorway.

And he felt his heart skip another beat.

"You must get a lot of soggy stragglers through here then," she lightly continued the train he had begun as she looked around, taking in her surroundings. "…where exactly is here?" she asked, turning back to him with apparent confusion.

This time Seiya could not hide the outright laughter. He appreciated that she did not seem offended but more unsure-but-game at his reaction. "This is the backroom of Green Pharmacy."

"Green?" she said the English word awkwardly, clearly making a test run with it.

"It's an English color," Seiya supplied, fascinated as he watched her expression change from contemplation to recognition. So, she was always expressive, although he bet it was unconsciously so.

"I thought it sounded familiar!" Seiya assumed she meant the word and not the store. Her face clouded over once more, and Seiya found himself already testing out theories as to why she would react so. "You work here?" she asked, clearly worried about something. His normally good reflexes regarding people seemed muted with this girl, as though his admitted attraction had him too distracted to think clearly and fully on her words and reactions.

"I do. Don't worry, Mamoru and I didn't phone the police or even the manager about a trespasser." She began to chew her lip again. He hadn't said the right thing. He mentally hit himself over the head at his word choice.

"Oh dear… I'm sorry to cause so much trouble." She nervously tucked a stray strand of her wet hair behind an ear as she spoke, glancing around her at the puddles she'd formed and the wet towels draped over the back of a broken, empty chair. She seemed finally struck by what Seiya viewed as a minimal mess. "Oh!" she cried again, hurrying to collect the towels and tripping slightly over her own feet in her rush. "Don't worry, I'll clean this up and pay you for the towels" –she was perceptive to realize they were new, unused towels, Seiya thought- "and then leave through this way so no one sees! I really am sorry, I don't know what I was thinking," she repeated the last statement, tears forming at the corners of her eyes as she fell onto her knees, struggling to mop up the damp stains out of the concrete floor with an even damper towel.

Seiya quickly lowered himself to his knees as well, placing a halting hand on top of her frantically scrubbing one. "Don't worry about it." He tried to annunciate each syllable with authority as he imagined Mamoru would have, in order to convey the unimportance of the action. He did not want to watch her cry over something he viewed as somewhat of a blessing. After all, he had met her because of all this, hadn't he?

His tone seemed only to agitate her more, and tears further pooled in her bright eyes. Seiya found the action unnerving and tried to find a comforting and, more importantly, a _quick_ way to cut them off before he became forced to simply crush her in an embrace (which he guessed would only alarm her, rather than console her).

She let out a soft hiccup of a sob, propelling him into unplanned speech. "I'm sorry!" he exclaimed rather loudly, jumping away from her to ensure he would not be too tempted to inappropriately hug her to him. "I only meant," he said, looking away from her for a moment, then returning his gaze as he realized she might get the wrong impression, "that it's been a really slow day." He gestured outside, hoping that was enough explanation. "And there hasn't been much to do around here all afternoon." Her eyes continued to water, overflowing. He realized somewhat belatedly that he had hinted that her appearance had been nothing more than entertainment for a dull day.

And Mamoru said he was _good_ at this "people-skills" thing… he would strangle the cheeky bastard for misleading him, that much was for sure.

Seiya closed his dark eyes against the sight of Usagi, and drew in a deep breath. "That didn't come out quite right," he explained honestly, his eyes still shut. He drew another breath, then looked at her with what he knew was a rather intense gaze. "I only meant, you don't need to worry about being a nuisance, or anything even _close_ to troublesome. On a day like this, or any day for that matter, I would gladly enjoy your company." He knew the honesty to the statement. He wished she did not look so warily at him again, as though she could not begin to imagine any truth to it.

He felt slight exasperation at her reaction. Humans…or perhaps even more precisely, women…?

Sighing with only a tiny bit of frustration, he stood. "In any case, no one should ever be allowed to walk in the rain without the comforts of an umbrella and a companion." He held a hand out to her, a gesture no one could take as untrustworthy (he hoped). After a moment of hesitation, and with clear confusion in regard to his meaning crossing her features, she grasped his extended hand with her still-too-cold fingers, and allowed him to help her to her feet. "Let me close up the store, and then I'll walk you home."

She began to make the expected excuses. He wanted much too much to cut them off with a kiss. He hadn't known her for more than half an hour. He didn't _know_ her at all!

He shook his head, both to clear his own thoughts and to stop her onslaught of excuses. Clearly he would get no where with her this way. "You owe me for trespassing here?" he wanted to wince at the word use again, but managed not to.

She mutely nodded in agreement, once again chagrin, her eyes downcast with embarrassment.

"Then you'll let me walk you home without argument. In alleviating my unease, both on your walking alone at this time of the evening and doing so in the rain, I promise not to report your trespassing to my manager as I should." Not that he ever would have anyway…yet sadly he already knew such an empty threat would actually work on her. That innocence…it almost made him laugh again.

He watched her open her mouth to argue once more, then close it without making a sound, and found himself amused at the disgruntlement tingeing her features. Feeling suddenly playful, he leaned forward so that he was only a few inches from her face. She did not seem to notice the closer proximity at first, still subtly glaring at him with clear distaste at her option of debt repayment. "Or you could always go on a date with me," Seiya offered with mock-innocence, enjoying the way her eyes widened in complete shock at his statement as well as realization of how close his face was to hers. "It's your choice," he whispered with the slightest hint huskiness, leaning even closer in order to close the distance she had tried to place between them with her awareness of their closeness.

Before she could say anything, Seiya made an about-face, not bothering to wait for her answer as he ambled towards the front of the store in order to lock the doors and turn off the burning "Open" sign in the window. He felt minimal guilt for posing such a question to her; as consequentialist theory would have it, the ends justified the means. Honestly, he would not mind either way if she agreed to a date with him or not, but he _did _care whether she actually believed him when he said that he was glad of her company. His ego would not be bruised by the refusal he assumed he would receive (if she even took the proposal seriously), because he had not asked with any sort of a self-serving purpose. He would not lie to himself, though. He wanted to spend more time with her, in any way he could figure.

Proud of his believed accomplishment at his task to at least ease her discomfiture for one subject (albeit knowing he had replaced it with another), Seiya allowed himself to whistle as he untied his green apron and hung it to its allotted hook beside Mamoru's. Collecting the umbrella he knew he would need, he only absently wondered again what kept his friend…

. . .

The last time Setsuna had told Mamoru "goodbye" he had taken her to mean "Goodbye, have a good day." He had known Setsuna long enough that at the time he should have recognized the difference between the two statements. Setsuna always said exactly what she meant. If he had not understood that before, he'd discovered the truth of it alarmingly fast.

She truly had disappeared. Because no matter how many hours he combed through face after face, his hand pressed hard enough to the bare earth to draw blood, Setsuna's never came into view except in his own inner mind. Oddly enough, the panic that had owned his actions and thoughts abated somewhat with the discovery that she no longer wandered Earth. He had managed to control the raging emotion with familiar technique, and finally had sat back on his heels and thought about the situation with all the rationality that had left him before.

As his senses returned to him, piece by broken piece, he had also begun to piece together the puzzle of Setsuna's disappearance. His initial, slightly-panicked assumption which had set him to looking through the Earth itself, a power he seldom called upon, had been that something truly horrible had occurred –she had been found, taken, even possibly sacrificed herself. No matter the irrationality he still had had crazed ideas, stirred by a gut-wrenching panic, that he could not _find_ her because she could not be _found_, because she was _dead_. Luckily, enough of the practical side had returned to lay before him the facts and other possible reasons, those not chained to formation by his own panic.

Setsuna had disappeared off the face of the earth. He in no way meant that metaphorically. But he knew her powers, or at least of them. The chance Setsuna could be taken without the knowledge of any of them had seemed minute in comparison to the other ideas, in particular one, which made themselves known to Mamoru on that day. She had said "goodbye" after all.

He looked to Setsuna now as she turned to face him, her jaw set with the same stubbornness, her unusual eyes still mixed with those strange prophetic messages, chaos vying with something he could never quite place. Her mouth did not turn upwards at the sight of him, her body made no movement to beckon him towards her. Yet Mamoru still felt the magnetism she emitted, and he gave into it, though hardly with his once-felt enthusiasm. Her first and only movement was to tilt the umbrella slightly, in order to shield him as well as herself from the still hard-coming rain.

"Sets," Mamoru breathed, realizing the name hurt his throat with the two opposing feelings laced throughout it.

"Mamoru," she nodded somewhat, acknowledging his presence, and perhaps sensing that he needed to know her to be real but could not bring himself to touch her. She stood with an absolute stillness, clearly trying to give no impressions, unwilling to stay and unwilling to leave. At least she seemed to be on the same grounds as him in that regard.

Striving to remain passive, Mamoru wracked his mind for a suitable line of conversation. All that pummeled him were questions –where had she gone, why had she left, had she been safe, was she unharmed…? The silence between them, which he had once viewed as so companionable, weighed on him. More questions…what did she want to hear from him, why had she turned at the familiarity of his voice calling out her name…?

This feeling of always being in constant chase was beginning to wear on him.

"I thought-" Mamoru broke off, unsure where his sentence had even been going. He knew he could not ask her any of the many questions he wanted to. He was used to hesitation when speaking with Setsuna, but this went beyond such. Although he lacked Seiya's acute bluntness, trading it in for what he deigned "tact," Mamoru had always been the more outspoken in this relationship. Because he could not ask, the questions would in all probability never have answers. But something else bothered him; there was a definite wrongness, he knew something was missing, lacking. Another question, and yet another…_why_ could he not bring himself to ask her?

Setsuna watched him as he bit down on his lip, her expression blank –extremely so, in fact, as though she were trying much too hard to keep it just that way. Before he could further evaluate what he saw now as clear evasiveness on Setsuna's part, she apparently made some sort of decision.

"Mamoru," she spoke his name again, and all his thoughts ceased. He hated that. And how he had missed it… "We need to speak."

Mamoru looked around, unable to resist raising an eyebrow in question as he gestured about him to the empty streets.

Shaking her head, her features still masked in careful blandness, she said, "No, not only you, the others as well. I think I may have found something …someone. Whoever it is, he or she may be…is very important. But also elusive." Mamoru nodded at her explanation, understanding her unspoken meaning: she needed help. Whoever this person was had her slightly flustered. He sensed though that it might have had more to do with her recent failures and a sudden loss in her own confidence. The loss of two of their comrades weighed heavily on them all, but never as much as it did on Setsuna's shoulders.

"All right," he said, still nodding, already somewhat dreading the confrontation he and Seiya would have with Yaten and Taiki over this particular turn of events. Seiya always seemed much less adverse to the idea of a team effort than Taiki, and Taiki was easy in comparison to Yaten. "But you and I need to talk as well."

"I have already said what needed to be said." He knew she referred to the "goodbye" that before, all at once, had assured him her disappearance was intentional and also had expressed an ending to something, an ending he was not willing to acknowledge.

She made the movement to turn, a clear indicator of the conversation's end. The nonchalant, almost cavalier, quality to her voice did not feel right at all. And her words incensed Mamoru with a sudden intensity. He reached out his hand, grasping her arm below the elbow.

"You may have made your peace, but _I_ certainly have not." Setsuna looked to the hand, and Mamoru had the satisfaction of finally seeing a shred of shock pass across her face.

. . .

"You only just moved?" Seiya looked down to Usagi as she scanned the street sign, watching her try to concentrate on the map laid out in her head. She seemed slightly frustrated that she did not know exactly where they were, though this might have had something to do with his question moments before of whether they were lost or not.

He noted a shiver pass through her, and mentally sighed again over her refusal to take one of the store's blankets with her. Deftly, while she was distracted with figuring out their location, Seiya removed his jacket and draped it over Usagi's shoulders, startling her somewhat with the action. When she turned her wide-eyed gaze to him, he smiled easily. Despite what suspicious thoughts he guessed ran through her mind, she answered with her own slight smile, her cheeks flushing warmly. Then she blinked, remembering the posed question.

"My brother and I moved three months ago, from Hokkaido," she explained, her eyes once again returning to the street sign she had been puzzling over.

"Oh." The image of Usagi awash in fields of flowers and countryside meadows filled Seiya's mind's eye. It fit her astoundingly well. "Why only you and your brother?"

"Our parents decided it would be better for us." Seiya eyed Usagi with some disbelief. She said the statement so breezily, as though it was just something natural. Seiya shook his head, guessing differently. Her statement seemed a rather halted description and he did have to wonder at the whole story. From his own curious observations and personal experiences, family units were only separated under dire circumstances. What sort of situation could possibly call for the separation of her family? Then again, perhaps he was just being sentimental….family was a difficult if not touchy subject for him, at best.

"Has it been difficult for you?" He had not really suspected that the source of her emotional distress could be family oriented, but then did anyone ever suspect family issues? It was all so close to the heart, people seldom seemed apt to speak of it when it was the source of pain. Yet he noted the ease at which she discussed leaving. Had she not been happy there in Hokkaido? Maybe his opinion was a bit biased based on one encounter, but he could not think she was particularly happy in Tokyo either.

"…a little," she conceded, obviously trying to observe social graces. "But any new thing or place can be difficult, right?" She looked up at him, as though willing his agreement, and Seiya realized she meant the question not rhetorically, but genuinely.

She evoked with her question such memories… when he and Yaten and Taiki had first arrived years before. They had lost their world, their purpose, everything they had known. Acclimating to Earth all the while struggling to pull themselves together enough and simply find a reason to go on in the first place, some sort of common end to delay the true end, it made him laugh almost bitterly at who could ever call such an experience merely "difficult."

"I suppose so," Seiya had to answer, though he wondered if in his particular circumstance it was not so much the new place that brought about such grief, but the change that had forced their hands.

"I think it is sort of like a you-cannot-get-the good-without-the-bad sort of deal. It isn't easy to wait out the bad…it's a bit lonely," Usagi admitted, looking up for a moment at the gray clouds. Seiya felt a resounding pang with her look, but as quickly as it had been felt, and the look loomed onto her face, Usagi replaced the expression with a smile.

Still watching the clouds, she continued, "But I have my younger brother, although if you ever tell him he is my current salvation I may just have to kill you." She looked at Seiya pointedly with what might have been an intimidating look had her lips not been twitching against her teasing smile. "He's really quite charming sometimes , like when he's sleeping. The rest of the time he is just downright rotten," her widening smile betrayed her true feelings. She so obviously loved this sibling more than she loved anything else in the world. "So in a way, it is never _all_ bad. I certainly have much less to complain about than so many people…"

Seiya had thought similarly before - that there were things to be thankful for, so why was he not constantly thankful? Always he had comforted himself with the idea that no one could be thankful for the small things when the larger things, like living, were tainted with further twisted meaning, such as living but having lived through the annihilation of your world. But here Usagi said the same thing, and rather than it being a statement meant to shame herself into a half-hearted happiness, she was genuinely uplifted by the idea. Not that she celebrated others' despair, in the end it had nothing to do with other people. With her simple statement she counted her blessings, and they were enough to make her smile.

Before, Seiya might have guessed it would get old, these sudden feelings of simply being awash by her light. After all, he was not a man who liked being taken aback on a regular basis. Although there was no other way to describe it, she truly did force him to take mental steps back, it had altogether a different quality in reality than he knew he could ever describe with real words. Though he could confess that he loved every second of it. Still walking, and trying to wade through the feeling while at the same time savoring it, Seiya turned to watch her again and attempt to form a suitable response. His surprise to not find her at his shoulder might have been comical under different circumstances. He looked around, then back.

Usagi stood some feet back, her eyes focused down a side street. Her mouth hung agape, and at first Seiya thought she had seen her first display of public affection gone to extremes. But the horror in her eyes read much differently than simply naiveté being struck down in a city of all sorts.

"Usagi, what's the matter?" he asked, walking towards her and turning to follow her gaze. The long, narrowing side street was completely empty save for the houses lining either side. Seiya searched it a moment, confused when he looked back to Usagi and her eyes were still widened with obvious shock and fright. "Usagi?" he asked again, wondering if she had seen a passerby that reminded her of someone.

Slowly, and never shifting her gaze from the street, she murmured something low. It was so soft, Seiya could barely understand it, and what he heard he barely comprehended.

"…from the dream? Usagi, I don't understand-" the blow from behind caught him completely off guard, but even as he stumbled against the weight and pain of it, he recognized the source.

So. There had been a youma after all.

. . .

He shouldn't have let her leave again. That much was obvious to Mamoru now, his thoughts exponentially clearer the more distance he placed between the two of them. He walked with an aimless fervor in the direction completely opposite to the course Setsuna had begun to take. Part of him knew he should have at least followed her, but at the time simply seeing her had addled him enough that clear, rational thought seemed obviously to have left him.

The ability to actually demand an explanation for her disappearance had not come to him. Just as he had expected, he had not received an explanation either. Their concise conversation had ended quite abruptly after he demanded to have a say in what he wished could just be left unsaid. He certainly had sealed the fate of that situation; he saw it coming like the blaring of headlights barreling towards him.

They would see one another again. He would say his peace with the least amount of desperation he could muster, which would amount to "never leave me again."

And then it…they…would be over.

He had not asked for reassurance that this would not be the last time he would watch her walk away because he knew she would let him have his say, no matter how pointless it was. She already had taken that figurative walk away from him months before, from the moment she kissed him goodbye.

The only inkling Mamoru had had that her disappearance had been a premeditated action was the final kiss she had left him with. It had signaled an unspoken ending. And then Setsuna had completely disappeared off the face of the Earth for three months. It was as though she had never existed, except to Mamoru. To him she existed everywhere, in every passing moment of pause. It was a sickeningly sweet obsession that he had refused to release himself from the grasp of. All those months, he should have been trying to extricate himself from this mess so that upon meeting her once more, this would not have happened. A small part of himself had whispered to him what the greater part had known and not been willing to acknowledge, but an even larger part had hushed the voice and instead placed all its energies into trying to calculate Setsuna's motives, and why she had left them unsaid.

Denial. Not just a river in Egypt.

_I haven't learned anything_. The thought should have depressed him. Seeing her should have elated him. He felt neither.

If he had faced the situation in an adult, straightforward fashion, they would have met on professional terms. This future conversation, which Mamoru could already imagine with extraordinary detail, could only have one outcome, the end. Where as if he had tried to take in the bigger picture, acknowledged that she felt it was the end but that he could probably persuade her otherwise after some time rather than stupidly running straightforward into it…

Hindsight is 20/20.

…he really needed to come up with better sayings. Either that or quit thinking them altogether.

So here he was, walking towards who knew where with enough pent up frustration to take out a forest, with nothing to show for it but projected futures and at the heart of it, an ache he was running away from.

At least he had been intelligent enough to demand her mobile number. This was not much of a triumph, as she _did_ want to see the entire group together, which required communication on some level. But at least this way he could outline the date and time for this wonderful catastrophe. Although really, how hard was it not to answer a call from him if she found the timing unsuitable?

He was somewhat surprised she had managed to get a cell phone and work it without assistance. He supposed though that technology had never posed her a problem the way other naturally-human activities had. Especially in the beginning.

He shook his head with a mixture of frustration and exasperation. But really what was he thinking? It had been years since he first showed her how a computer worked. By this point she was well-versed in acting human.

Acting human…at her heart she _was_ human. Mamoru could never understand how she failed to see that. It was this _mission_, he internally spat out. She had always allowed it to eat at her too much, never forgotten it for a moment, never allowed herself to discard it and appreciate what she had around her! Her bravery and unyielding focus had once been his favorite traits about her. Hell, even her goddamned mission had not seemed so terrible. Because, though he hated to admit it to himself, it was also his mission. And he had _it_ to thank for the fact that he even _knew_ Setsuna Meioh.

He wanted to embrace that thought with the warmth he had once felt for its purpose, and for its connection to her. He was met with a deadened apathy. _Damn. It. All._

He felt completely surrounded by a dead, unfeeling world. Ironically enough, the only emotion, aside from the understandable frustration, he seemed able to conjure up he felt due to that silly girl, and the emotion was not even _his_. _Damn_, he repeated to himself, not even sure what he was damning anymore -the mission, his own confusion, the blooming heartbreak he'd failed to recognize over the last few months that he had walled in suitably but now felt the incomprehensible urge to free...

He heard the shriek of fright, but it took him a surprised moment to register its source and the direction. The sarcastic pessimist in him just had to speak up at that moment. _Perfect_, it voiced.

Sprinting towards the sound, he couldn't agree more.

. . .

Yay! Chapter One! If I'm being truthful with myself, I will probably be back in and editing this again in the next few days. Nothing huge, small modifications; I only just wrote out some sections of this earlier today and usually it takes one or two readthroughs for me to get it correct. But it felt strange to let this completed chapter just burn time on my harddrive so...

Small aside, I'd like to say I DO know that, in Japanese, the surname is followed by the first name, not vice versa. I was trying to find some sort of happy medium, what with using the original Japanese names but by no means being any sort of expert in Japanese culture. I sort of came to the conclusion that I would write it how it came to me, and being American I guess I shouldn't be surprised that my old-fashioned roots came into play. But this also means I will rarely be using honorifics and probably a rather limited amount of true Japanese tradition. Once again I hope this doesn't throw or offend anyone, since the story is set in Tokyo.

Also, I know that thus far it seems like I focus a lot of the feelings and emotional side of these characters' lives… I honestly don't mean for it to be that way, but I find that I can best describe how they perceive things this way! I can't promise that it will diminish in the coming chapters, I'm only just getting back into the swing of writing regularly, but I DO know that it can be overwhelming sometimes so I apologize for that.

Finally, I really wanted to thank the people who reviewed and favorited! I was QUITE surprised, and really touched - Thank you!!


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